The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works that examine the aesthetics of technology across time and media.

INTERFACE is an exhibit about the aesthetics of technology, with a focus that includes the emerging trends of new media, but also historical ones. As technologies evolve, so do their looks and feels: business-like terminals, 8-bit pixels, psychedelic pulp, the charm and color of Y2K, even the rhythm and timbre of the never-ending streams in our pockets. Each shift reveals not only technological progress, but cultural mood, nostalgia, and projection into the future.

Yet the aesthetics of our technologies are part of a longer story. Rasping marks in wood, a distinctive brushmark or smudge of oil paint, the crackle of vinyl, or the grain of film all remind us that technology—old or new—imprints itself on the art it makes possible.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works that engage with the universal language of numbers, as both measurement and metaphor, structure and symbol.

We live by numbers. We count the days until a child is born, and the days since. We mark time in birthdays, anniversaries, and retirements. We measure progress in grades, salaries, “likes,” years on the job, and steps taken or miles run. Numbers shape how we understand ourselves and the world—our distance traveled, our age, our debts, our hopes.

Numbers are also a language. They describe not only what is tangible but also what lies beyond immediate observation—weather patterns, the speed of light, the pull of gravity, the scale of galaxies. Like letters and type, they carry formal beauty in their shapes and arrangements. Writing the notation for a perfect sphere is so much simpler than drawing one, and yet both actions “mean” the same concept.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works that use or examine repetition, either as a formal approach or as an underlying concept.

Repetition sets precedence. A repeated element, audible, visual, creates a pattern. This pattern, its predictability, leads to rhythm and continuity. It creates a sense of movement in time or place. When you break that pattern and interrupt the flow you have created you subvert that continuity and pull the rug out from the viewer. The use of repetition both builds and disrupts.

Repetition allows for comparison. Being refections of each other, doubles and doppelgängers highlight difference and create a dialogue.

Repetition is action full of care. Re-addressing a familiar subject permits you to return to it again with new knowledge, gained the first time you paid it attention.

Repetition persists. Trying again and again begets mastery. It erodes shorelines and carves canyons.

Repetition disseminates. Multiples, editions, clones, and copies spread, reaching far from where they originated.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works about revelations, sudden comprehension, and epiphanies from within the mundane.

In the repetition of the everyday, the smallest glimmer can cut through like a bolt of lightning—or arrive more gently, through a subtle but irrevocable shift. A whisper. Despite its brevity, it appears at just the right moment to change you. And changed, you may see everything differently.

Glimmers usually come unbidden. They find us in the shower, while preparing a meal, walking the dog, sweeping the studio floor. Magic arises from the mundanity of life—the neutral backdrop against which something unexpected and transformative can emerge. These flashes of the divine reach us when we are open enough, still enough, to receive them.

This exhibition will showcase works that emerge from or reflect on such moments of insight—when the everyday becomes fertile ground. A half-finished sketch, a broken vase, an old object, a glance out the window, a shimmer of light through a glass of water: each can become a door to something more. 

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of art in any media, any genre/style, any size for consideration to be awarded this year’s Manifest Prize. One work will be selected for the $5,000 award, featured in the gallery, and published. Four semi-finalist works will also be recognized and published.

Works submitted must have been completed within the past five years (2020-2025), and must also be available for the exhibition period of early December through mid-January in order to be eligible.

Entry Fee: $60 for up to five entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works about celebration—about grit, survival, and the moment struggle shifts into triumph.

Roaring is the sound of a thousand clapping hands.

The moment of victory is brief. When oxygen finally settles in our lungs, we step back to take in the monument of our achievement—tangible proof of choice, perseverance, and resolve. Reality wavers. Vindication hardens into history, marked by the sweet crack and whistle of fireworks.

Though fleeting, celebration echoes. It lingers in the inescapable glint of glitter, in the aching muscles that worked too hard for too long, in works of art that commemorate, symbolize, or embody the moment. 

International Deadline: August 29, 2025 – Highly regarded Manifest, invites visual artists to submit works about revelations, sudden comprehension, and epiphanies from within the mundane. Cash awards, publication...

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of contemporary watercolor. Open to all traditional and non-traditional approaches to the medium. *Watercolor, gouache, ink wash, tempera, and other similar painting media are all eligible. Submissions can range from the most traditional to the most conceptual or experimental.

Quite possibly the oldest form of painting, watercolor persists today, defying narrow categorization and broad stereotype. Practiced for centuries in concept development preliminary to finished paintings made in oil or other scale-worthy durable media, watercolor also found favor with botanists, illustrators, and portraitists, and was applied to varied and countless surfaces.

The nature of the media itself represents a delicate and dictatorial transparency, fluidity, and a potential for expressive spontaneity. This not only makes it an ideal vehicle for visual art, but also one of training, intensity, philosophy, and play for any who practice it. Where an artist can easily dominate other painting media, forcing a will through viscous layers into a work of art like taming a wild horse, with watercolor there is dialog, compromise, and undeniable forthrightness. In this way the artist practicing watercolor works with a tiger in the room. 

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of contemporary painting. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

At some point many generations ago society reached a level where ordinary people could spend a lifetime perfecting their ability to mix and apply paint, in extraordinary ways. A decade ago, to mark Manifest's 10th season the gallery kicked off a permanent biennial project surveying painting as an art form. It was first presented in fall 2013 to inaugurate our expanded gallery. PAINTED 2025 will be the seventh biennial presentation of this international survey of contemporary painting.

PAINTED joins Drawn as a recurring gallery exhibition designed to complement our ongoing triennial INDA and INPA (drawing and painting) publications. Every two years it launches our exhibition season by presenting a competitive group exhibition focused exclusively on painting.

PAINTED is a gallery exhibit that calls for works of painting by artists around the world as they carry the tradition forward, or reform it for another day. Submissions can range from the most traditional to the most conceptual, abstract, or experimental, including those which push the boundaries of the common definition of what constitutes ‘painting'.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works made about or using skills and materials the world may have moved on from, but still contain depth of potential, and unappreciated value.

A lost art is a skill or process that has fallen out of use: wet-plate colloidal photography, punch-card coding, cursive writing. As technologies develop, old ways of doing things fall out of memory in favor of what is newer, more fashionable, faster, or cheaper. The world moves on, leaving behind the detritus of tools and machines made to complete work that is no longer done. The knowledge of how to process film, how to weave, to mix egg-tempera paint, takes on a sacred, rarified, or even provincial quality.

Where does the knowledge go when the industrial, technologically-advanced world thinks it doesn’t need it anymore? How has being forgotten freed it? Who are the stewards of these lost arts? 

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works about the objects that make a space suitable for living—about its use, its design, its crafting, or about the events and work in our lives that happen around it.

A room is characterized by the furniture and fixtures inside of it. Fixtures tell you where you are. If you see a sink and refrigerator, know you are in the kitchen; a large formal table places you in a dining room. Crown that table with a chandelier and you are in a nice dining room.

Furniture’s aesthetic communicates as much as it functions—an industrial stainless-steel kitchen is easier to keep clean, and its smooth planes and sharp edges communicate exemplary spotlessness. Beds, chairs, and dressers become sites navigated to and around daily as we eat, cook, clean ourselves, organize, work, and rest.

Furniture’s construction is an art, its design a science. It is passed down, bought new, found in antique malls, repaired, refinished. It signifies class, purpose, and it changes features and make-up to suit a type of work done with it. 

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of contemporary watercolor. Open to all traditional and non-traditional approaches to the medium. *Watercolor, gouache, ink wash, tempera, and other similar painting media are all eligible. Submissions can range from the most traditional to the most conceptual or experimental.

Quite possibly the oldest form of painting, watercolor persists today, defying narrow categorization and broad stereotype. Practiced for centuries in concept development preliminary to finished paintings made in oil or other scale-worthy durable media, watercolor also found favor with botanists, illustrators, and portraitists, and was applied to varied and countless surfaces.

The nature of the media itself represents a delicate and dictatorial transparency, fluidity, and a potential for expressive spontaneity. This not only makes it an ideal vehicle for visual art, but also one of training, intensity, philosophy, and play for any who practice it. Where an artist can easily dominate other painting media, forcing a will through viscous layers into a work of art like taming a wild horse, with watercolor there is dialog, compromise, and undeniable forthrightness. In this way the artist practicing watercolor works with a tiger in the room. 

$45 for up to three entries. $5 per each additional entry.

Includes honorarium of $50 for each exhibiting artist, and Grand Jury Award of $1,000 for one jury-selected work from among the exhibits on view.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of contemporary painting. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

At some point many generations ago society reached a level where ordinary people could spend a lifetime perfecting their ability to mix and apply paint, in extraordinary ways. A decade ago, to mark Manifest's 10th season the gallery kicked off a permanent biennial project surveying painting as an art form. It was first presented in fall 2013 to inaugurate our expanded gallery. PAINTED 2025 will be the seventh biennial presentation of this international survey of contemporary painting.

PAINTED joins Drawn as a recurring gallery exhibition designed to complement our ongoing triennial INDA and INPA (drawing and painting) publications. Every two years it launches our exhibition season by presenting a competitive group exhibition focused exclusively on painting.

PAINTED is a gallery exhibit that calls for works of painting by artists around the world as they carry the tradition forward, or reform it for another day. Submissions can range from the most traditional to the most conceptual, abstract, or experimental, including those which push the boundaries of the common definition of what constitutes ‘painting'.

$45 for up to three entries. $5 per each additional entry.

Includes honorarium of $50 for each exhibiting artist, and Grand Jury Award of $1,000 for one jury-selected work from among the exhibits on view.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of art about clothing, things that adorn or extend the body, and anything we wear. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media, including 2D, 3D, etc.

First and foremost, we dress as a matter of utility: to protect ourselves from nature, to augment or facilitate our physical abilities, and to cover the parts of ourselves we do not wish for others to touch or see.

Clothing, however, is a language all its own. The nuances of what we wear are a way to tell the world, and affirm to ourselves, what we are. The quote from RuPaul, “We are born naked, and the rest is drag”, is a pop-cultural sentiment that contains a deep truth: A kid’s dress-up box doesn’t just contain costumes, it contains identities.

What do you put on in the morning? What does it say about you? What are these things that we wear made from, what do they do, what do they say, and where do they go?

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of art in any media, any genre/style, and any size in tandem with another artist. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media, including 2D, 3D, etc.

Often artists develop special bonds supporting, critiquing, challenging, and celebrating each other's works over years and lifetimes, all while maintaining an informal peer relationship. Or maybe, sometimes, they just maintain a strong affinity for one another's work—one of the best forms of support and critical validation there is, respect by a peer one respects in-turn.

Out of respect for this artist-artist relationship—perhaps the most vital force in supporting quality and achievement in the visual arts—we offer BUDDY SYSTEM* for the first time ever, aiming to exhibit paired works of art by artists who share mutual respect and participate in this important peer support system.

It is important to note that this project is open to any artist at any level. The sole criteria for the pairing is that the relationship between the two is one of admiration, respect, support, friendship, or other positive peer engagement.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works that address the uncovered human form. Open to any and all traditional and non-traditional 2D and 3D visual arts media.

The human body is a popular subject for many reasons, the most obvious being that it is us. Throughout history (and pre-history) the representation of the human form has been charged with tremendous energy. Whether it be a religious edict that one should not depict the human form—a taboo, or the glorious opposite—a revelation of mastery over form in the crafting of sensuous and life-like physical human beauty, the art of the body has moved us through time.

Through all the permutations art has experienced across history, work of the body persists. We use the human nude to master skill, understand ourselves, and push social and psychological buttons for the sake of expression (sensual, delicate, political, social, narrative, spiritual, and so on). We intend for Manifest's ongoing annual NUDE project, now in its 17th year, to explore how our collective body is used today in art to achieve these goals and more.

$45 for up to three entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry.

Includes honorarium of $50 for each exhibiting artist and Grand Jury Award of $1,000 for one jury-selected work from among the exhibits on view.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit complete applications to the Manifest Artist Residency program (MAR) and Scholar in Residence (SIR) located in the vibrant historic urban neighborhoods of East Walnut Hills and Clifton in Cincinnati, Ohio near the Ohio River, Eden Park, the Cincinnati Art Museum, numerous Universities, and within three miles of downtown Cincinnati and 'Over the Rhine’.

Applications will be reviewed on a competitive basis. Awards consist of 24/7 use of a private studio, free programming at Manifest Drawing Center, teaching consideration, public exposure, free entry to Manifest calls for entry, potential inclusion in a final showcase exhibit and end of season Manifest Exhibition Annual publication, as well as the presentation of a public artist talk at or near the conclusion of the Residency.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit proposals of original bodies of work for consideration during the 2025/26 exhibit season.

On average, one-third of Manifest's exhibits are dedicated to solo exhibits. Solo exhibitors have included local, regional, and national artists from as far away as New York City, San Francisco, Canada, and Hong Kong. It is important to our non-profit mission that each of our seasons of free public exhibits consist of a balanced mix of solo and group thematic projects. The group shows provide diversity of approach, media, style, and geographic origin, while the solo exhibits provide a deeper insight into an artist's vision. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

Anyone can submit a proposal. Artists should bear in mind the need for a consistent and very strong body of work when submitting. Quality of documentation/images affects the committee's impression of the submitting artist.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works about looking and being looked at. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media, including 2D, 3D, etc.

What does it feel like to be looked at?

A part of us craves the attention of others. Kids beg to be observed as they dive into a pool. So many of us post pictures online, waiting for responses from our audience of friends and strangers. Being watched means that we may be loved, or that we may be important. Maybe others will be impressed! Maybe they will like us more—or maybe they will like us less. We modulate our behavior for that attention. It changes us. It creates ‘culture'.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works of any genre, subject matter, and/or content that measures no more than 7 inches in any direction.

Every year Manifest produces a special exhibit of LITTLE works of art from around the world. 

Each iteration of the exhibit brings in hundreds of powerful yet diminutive works for our jury to consider. Inevitably this results in a gallery full of diverse, compelling, and exquisite little gems. Manifest’s patrons eagerly await the Magnitude SEVEN event each year. This annual project is one of the most varied exhibits in our season. So we are always excited to offer this call to artists to submit works no larger than seven inches in any dimension (any proportion). 

Standard presentation devices such as pedestals, mats, and frames that are not considered part of the work of art are not limited by the 7" criteria.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works created by college juniors, seniors, and recent undergraduates in 2024, 2025, or 2026. Open to any and all 2d and 3d traditional and non-traditional visual arts media, genre, subject matter, and content.

Every year through this exhibition Manifest surveys work by students and recent graduates of art and design programs, seeking to assemble, promote, and document examples of the excellence being achieved by new or emerging artists for Rites of Passage. This exhibit, season publication, and award are intended to support that emergence. 

For a twenty-first straight year we offer this challenge to students and the recently graduated in regional, national, and international college undergraduate programs to show us what they have achieved, bring it off campus, and share it with our international viewing public. To date Manifest has exhibited student works representing over 232 different academic institutions!

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit complete applications to the Manifest Artist Residency program (MAR) and Scholar in Residence (SIR) located in the vibrant historic urban neighborhoods of East Walnut Hills and Clifton in Cincinnati, Ohio near the Ohio River, Eden Park, the Cincinnati Art Museum, numerous Universities, and within three miles of downtown Cincinnati and 'Over the Rhine’.

Applications will be reviewed on a competitive basis. Awards consist of 24/7 use of a private studio, free programming at Manifest Drawing Center, teaching consideration, public exposure, free entry to Manifest calls for entry, potential inclusion in a final showcase exhibit and end of season Manifest Exhibition Annual publication, as well as the presentation of a public artist talk at or near the conclusion of the Residency.

Each application must be accompanied by a $50 non-refundable submission fee.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works which incorporate text or letter forms. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media, including 2D, 3D, etc.

Not long after humanity began drawing, drawings evolved into writing. Pictures became symbols, abstraction blossomed, and language became visual. Two branches, sharing one root, carried forward people's ideas, feelings, and plans. The visual and the verbal arts shared the role of encapsulating civilization's data. And they continue to do so today, in so many wondrous and varied ways. TEXTUALITY is an exhibit that inquires into the overlap of these two branches, seeking examples of where the verbal is made visual, where language returns into image.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of art about play, impulse, the fantastic, the fanciful, the mercurial, and the flighty. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media, including 2D, 3D, etc.

A whimsical thing is playful. It is unserious in the best way, shrugging off gravitas to remain unencumbered by serious concerns. Whimsy embraces play and forgoes responsibility; whimsy makes light.

Capricious and cruel, curious and joyful, whimsy is a result of instinct, a spasmodic reaction to an itch. If you do something on a whim, you didn’t think about why you’re doing it, but you permit yourself to follow an impulse. Following that desire leads to unconventional results and embraces unpredicted ends. Whimsy builds to the wonderful and the surreal, inspired by flights of fantasy.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites current visual art and design graduate students and MFA/MA degree recipients since January 2024 to submit works of art in any media, genre, subject matter, or content, traditional and non-traditional.

Every year Manifest offers an opportunity just for graduate students to exhibit at our gallery in Cincinnati. This 19th installment of the Master Pieces project will continue to reveal the intensity and professionalism of students working towards their terminal academic degree in the field of art or design. Often the most exceptional work comes out of these artists’ immersion in their culture of study and intellectual pursuit. Manifest’s goal, therefore, is to select works that set the standard of quality that the artist is expected to maintain throughout his or her professional career and justify the degree of Master.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works of any genre, subject matter, and/or content that measures no more than 7 inches in any direction.

Every year Manifest produces a special exhibit of LITTLE works of art from around the world. 

Each iteration of the exhibit brings in hundreds of powerful yet diminutive works for our jury to consider. Inevitably this results in a gallery full of diverse, compelling, and exquisite little gems. Manifest’s patrons eagerly await the Magnitude SEVEN event each year. This annual project is one of the most varied exhibits in our season. So we are always excited to offer this call to artists to submit works no larger than seven inches in any dimension (any proportion). 

Standard presentation devices such as pedestals, mats, and frames that are not considered part of the work of art are not limited by the 7" criteria.

$45 for up to THREE entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry.

Includes honorarium of $50 for each exhibiting artist, and Grand Jury Award of $1,000 for one jury-selected work from among the exhibits on view.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works created by college juniors, seniors, and recent undergraduates in 2024, 2025, or 2026. Open to any and all 2d and 3d traditional and non-traditional visual arts media, genre, subject matter, and content.

Every year through this exhibition Manifest surveys work by students and recent graduates of art and design programs, seeking to assemble, promote, and document examples of the excellence being achieved by new or emerging artists for Rites of Passage. This exhibit, season publication, and award are intended to support that emergence. 

For a twenty-first straight year we offer this challenge to students and the recently graduated in regional, national, and international college undergraduate programs to show us what they have achieved, bring it off campus, and share it with our international viewing public. To date Manifest has exhibited student works representing over 232 different academic institutions!

International Deadline: Open Until Filled – Highly regarded Manifest Creative Research Gallery is currently seeking artist entries for multiple international exhibitions. Cash awards, publication, honorariums...

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works about family, heritage, ancestors—for art about siblings, parents, children, the homes we make, the bonds of care, about where we came from and where we might grow. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

Family gives us a sense of culture through the languages used within it, the food cooked, the hierarchies and customs within, the histories and stories told. Family is shared experience, a shared home, a shared ease of being. Family moves beyond mere identity, however—it implies love, support, and a connection with a sense of obligation, in sickness and in health. It certainly includes, but isn’t limited to parentage and progeny. Family is made through the act of care, and we find and give that care in people beyond bonds of tradition. When does friend, does neighbor, become family?

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit works of art in any media, any genre/style, and any size in tandem with their teacher or student, past or present. Submission to this exhibit may be initiated by either party.

The relationship between artists and their current or former instructors can be a powerful one. Even when this bond is left unstated, we carry our professors' voices forward in time as we mature as artists and people. We eventually realize that the instruction given by our teachers during our relatively brief careers as students continues to expand within us. We realize that the learning they inspired (or insisted upon) is a chain-reaction process that develops across our lifetime. All of us who have been students carry forward our teachers' legacy in one form or another. And those who are, or have been teachers, bear witness to the potency of studenthood.

Out of respect for this artist-teacher bond, and in honor of instructors working hard to help artists tap into a higher mind relative to art and life, we offer TAPPED every year, an annual exhibit that presents paired works of art by current or former artist/teacher pairs.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of contemporary printmaking. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media within the expansive bounds of 'printmaking'.

Printmaking is an important checkpoint along the road map between the most primitive early cave scrawlings and the ubiquitous photography in everyone's pocket today. In many ways it is where the Arts meet the Humanities. As a creative discipline it represents the first awakening of the individual's potential for gaining broad knowledge and wide dissemination of facts, personal opinion, and expression. With this, printmaking might just be the first true form of a 'social media'.

Some artists are steadfast traditionalists, anchoring themselves in age-old technical methods. Others push the boundaries of the discipline, exploring just what constitutes ‘printmaking’. For this exhibit Manifest takes a fresh look at the media, and now makes it an ongoing commitment as a biennial exhibition.

Includes exhibitor honorarium of $50 for each exhibiting artist, and Grand Jury Award of $1,000 for one jury-selected work from among the exhibits on view.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works of art in any media, any genre/style, any size for consideration to be awarded this year’s Manifest Prize. One work will be selected for the award, featured in the gallery, and published. Four semi-finalist works will also be recognized and published.

Works submitted must have been completed within the past five years (2019-2024), and must also be available for the exhibition period of early December through mid-January in order to be eligible.

Early Deadline Entry Fee: $45 for up to five entries. $5 per each additional entry.

Final Deadline Entry Fee (Sept 2 - Oct 1, 2024): $60 for up to five entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry.

International Deadline: August 30, 2024 – Manifest Gallery invites artists to submit works for our exhibition, “Roots”. This is a call for works about family, heritage, ancestors. Honorarium, cash award, publication, more…

International Deadline: August 31, 2025 - Manifest invites artists to submit works for 'Tapped', our 16th annual exhibit of paired works by artists and
their current or former instructors . Honorariums, Awards…

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works that are about or which symbolize or depict the places we go when we are not at home and not at labor. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

The place that isn’t where we live, nor where we labor, is known as a “Third Place”. In a third place, we are not beholden to the same roles and responsibilities that generally define us. In a third place we are at leisure; we can sit, eat, play, talk, drink, and otherwise engage in activities with other people. Third places provide the opportunity to build relationships and engage with people outside our immediate sphere. They are places of learning, relaxation, and they are places of potential conflict.

How do artists represent this important personal and social catalyst?

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works which acknowledge containers of various types not just for their function, but for their meaning. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

A container inspires a myriad of reactions, from the exhilaration of opening a surprise present, to the swelling trepidation while winding a jack-in-the-box. Varying widely in size and shape, these objects are defined first by their function and further by their contents, and ultimately by our interaction with them—the act of placing into or removing something from within.

Often, but not always, containers are everyday objects, plentiful and readily overlooked for their contents. Emphasis is placed on the treasure within. What secrets might be kept secured, contained, or protected?

Where does a container land at the intersections between craft, art, and design? How can we explore its capacity to hold, transport, or protect?

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works that utilize purposeful arrangement, ritual, still life, altars, shrines, odes, eulogies, offerings, decorations, and dedications. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

An altar is a place for worship, for ritual, for sacrifice. While functionally a table, an altar is holier in intent—the difference comes from dedication. Objects on an altar are carefully arranged and used for sacred purpose. An object placed on an altar becomes an icon.

The objects in a still life are similarly arranged, imbued with meaning by artistic intent. If a still life is an altarpiece, to what diety is it dedicated?

Through this call we ask at what point does such devotional practice, often quite personal, become art—generating special objects or images made for something, that are destined, dedicated to and for someone, some object of devotion, a conduit for a higher idea to be shared with a public audience? What do we enshrine through the making of art?

International Deadline: July 27, 2025 - Highly regarded Manifest invites artists to submit works made about or using skills and materials the world may have moved on from. Honorariums, Awards, publication...

International Deadline: July 7, 2024 – Manifest is open to works of or about fragments, collage, appropriation, assemblage, or transforming and embracing prior histories. Awards, Honoraria, Publication…

Celebrating the start of its third decade of exhibitions, the Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit proposals of original lens-based bodies of work for consideration during the 2024/25 exhibit season.

On average, one-third of Manifest's exhibits are dedicated to solo exhibits. Solo exhibitors have included local, regional, and national artists from as far away as New York City, San Francisco, Canada, and Hong Kong. It is important to our non-profit mission that each of our seasons of free public exhibits consist of a balanced mix of solo and group thematic projects. The group shows provide diversity of approach, media, style, and geographic origin, while the solo exhibits provide a deeper insight into an artist's vision. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

Anyone can submit a proposal. Artists should bear in mind the need for a consistent and very strong body of work when submitting. Quality of documentation/images affects the committee's impression of the submitting artist.

Celebrating the start of its third decade of exhibitions, the Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit proposals of original bodies of work for consideration during the 2024/25 exhibit season.

On average, one-third of Manifest's exhibits are dedicated to solo exhibits. Solo exhibitors have included local, regional, and national artists from as far away as New York City, San Francisco, Canada, and Hong Kong. It is important to our non-profit mission that each of our seasons of free public exhibits consist of a balanced mix of solo and group thematic projects. The group shows provide diversity of approach, media, style, and geographic origin, while the solo exhibits provide a deeper insight into an artist's vision. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

Anyone can submit a proposal. Artists should bear in mind the need for a consistent and very strong body of work when submitting. Quality of documentation/images affects the committee's impression of the submitting artist.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works that represent or depict creative re-use. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

Objects do not die. Destroyed, broken, discarded, or otherwise at their end-of-use, they still have form and, therefore, potential.

Through an alchemy-like process, artists can see discarded things for the essence they represent, as raw material, and re-shape it into new life. Such creative resourcefulness is often driven by necessity. For example, within the fiber arts, scraps are turned into quilts, and entire mending traditions developed around extending and beautifying the lives of garments. Sculptors and craftsmen will harvest wood from anywhere, and reshape it into new works of art, design, or utility. Others, by impulse or conscience, pursue assemblage, collage, and re-contextualization not only to be thrifty or ethical, but to push culture forward.

LOST AND FOUND is a call to artists for works of or about fragments, collage, appropriation, assemblage, or transforming and embracing prior histories.

The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original works that explore the photograph as an object. Open to all traditional and non-traditional photographic and light-based genre and media.

Not so many years ago, we stopped touching photographs. While print media and brick-and-mortar galleries exist, our common, everyday experience with the photograph has drastically shifted from the handling of 4” x 6” prints from the drugstore to scrolling through brilliant digital images shining out from our screens.

CORPUS calls to artists for photographic-based works that re-engage the body, acknowledge their place in the physical world, and explore the impacts of choice of surface, volume, texture, material, and presentation methods on the experience of the image itself—the spirit in the body of the art. It aims to reveal the literal backstory, or other sides of what has become a sideless visual phenomenon, giving the photo back its body. This exhibit is support by FotoFocus as a participating venue project of the 2024 FotoFocus Biennial.

International Deadline: June 23, 2024 (extended) – Manifest Gallery invites artists and designers to submit proposals of original bodies of work for its upcoming season. Two types of proposals are being accepted…

International Deadline: September 1; October 1, 2025 – The highly regarded arts organization, Manifest, invites artists to submit original works of any media for our 16th Annual Manifest Prize. Cash awards, Publication...

Celebrating the start of its third decade of exhibitions, the Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit proposals of original lens-based bodies of work for consideration during the 2024/25 exhibit season.

On average, one-third of Manifest's exhibits are dedicated to solo exhibits. Solo exhibitors have included local, regional, and national artists from as far away as New York City, San Francisco, Canada, and Hong Kong. It is important to our non-profit mission that each of our seasons of free public exhibits consist of a balanced mix of solo and group thematic projects. The group shows provide diversity of approach, media, style, and geographic origin, while the solo exhibits provide a deeper insight into an artist's vision. Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media.

Anyone can submit a proposal. Artists should bear in mind the need for a consistent and very strong body of work when submitting. Quality of documentation/images affects the committee's impression of the submitting artist.

Includes exhibitor honorarium of $100 for each solo exhibiting artist, and new Grand Jury Award of $1,000 for one jury-selected work from among the exhibits on view.